Bale Kicker vs NH Stackliner - Back In The Day

[Bill VA]

Saw a few videos of a New Holland “Stackliner” bale wagon at work. Wonder who thunk of that contraption…

Back in the day, which was the best tow behind bale collector, a NH Stackliner bale wagon or kicker off the baler into a wagon?

Which was faster getting square bales of hay off the field and into the barn.

Just curious…

Thanks!

 

[Bruce from Can.]

I would suggest it depended upon where you lived, and the climate conditions. In the northern east we get too much rain to store small square bales outside, and it would be cost prohibitive to build new storage buildings that could accommodate unloading of the bale stacker wagons on most farms. Bale kickers or as we always called them “bale throwers “ dominated the scene, being able to bale and have the bales tumbled into a basket wagon by one person, making one pass of the field was a great time and labour saving. Even though it required a crew working back at the barn unloading and stacking bales, it was a labour saving. I had 4 wagons and a baler with a thrower. And I could go to the field and bale on 400 or more bales and haul them back to the barn by myself within a couple hours.

 

[Cash4Toys]

I have owned both systems. Bale kickers/throwers work good and are very efficient in the field, but you need to offload manually so help is still required, hence the problem. Bales were in the 40-45 lb range. When labor became scarce and too expensive I went to a stack wagon, and it worked good for me as I had the overhead room to just back into the shed and stack them. Mine also had the self-offloading feature that offload them to my elevator, and then i just had to stack them, still labor intensive. Not much additional labor involved. Now around here it's accumulator's and loader mounted bale grabbers that are being used. There's a few around here with this system putting up 60-70,000 bales a year and never touch a bale. Western states tend to make heavier bales, 65-70 lbs so stackers made more sense.

 

[tom upton]

I have my own custom stacker. Her name is Judy! My wife can build a mean load of hay and she says she likes the exercise so we bale right on to the wagon. She stacked most of what is in this picture in one afternoon. Rarely will she run the baler says she rather stack. We had a belt thrower on one baler but I took it off last year as she didnt like having to eat the chaff. It did make for less walking and lifting when on the wagon, but heh I didnt argue!

 

[Rich'sToys]

I have my own custom stacker. Her name is Judy! My wife can build a mean load of hay and she says she likes the exercise so we bale right on to the wagon. She stacked most of what is in this picture in one afternoon. Rarely will she run the baler says she rather stack. We had a belt thrower on one baler but I took it off last year as she didnt like having to eat the chaff. It did make for less walking and lifting when on the wagon, but heh I didnt argue!

Only one other time I've ever heard of someone manually stacking bales behind a bale thrower. Sounds pretty dangerous to me.

 

[chcase]

Saw a few videos of a New Holland “Stackliner” bale wagon at work. Wonder who thunk of that contraption…

Back in the day, which was the best tow behind bale collector, a NH Stackliner bale wagon or kicker off the baler into a wagon?

Which was faster getting square bales of hay off the field and into the barn.

Just curious…

Thanks!

I use to bale onto a wagon,then bought a kicker and increased the number of wagons. Had a neighbor that bought 2 model 1010 bale wagons. He would bale and drop on the ground and his wife and father would run the tractors with the bale wagons. They only held something like 55 bales but self unloaded at the large barns. He had both barns set up with mow elevators so they didn't touch a bale. He did that until the bale wagons wore out and his kids got older then did almost all round bales after. Years later his wife told me they wish they had kept at least one bale wagon . I think most depends on labor availability and storage space.

 

[DanielW]

I think you have two parts to your question: Faster getting off the field: Thrower and kicker wagon. But faster getting off the field AND into the barn: Definitely the Stackliner (assuming you have the headroom to use the tilt & unload feature) . If you have to use the Stackliner's one-by-one unload feature (not the tilt & unload), they're known to be pretty slow. But you also don't want to leave bales thrown by a kicker in the wagon for too long without stacking them in the barn. When they're all jumbled together like that and left sit, they tend to get mis-shapen after a while, and really bind together making it harder to unload.

My vote would be for the Stackliner if you have the head height to unload. Or better yet, a tubeline accumulator and grapple.

But then again, I also really want to find myself one of these, so my intelligence and sense of judgment is clearly a little warped:

Kemper Bale Wagon:

 

[Loosehandle]

Saw a few videos of a New Holland “Stackliner” bale wagon at work. Wonder who thunk of that contraption…

Back in the day, which was the best tow behind bale collector, a NH Stackliner bale wagon or kicker off the baler into a wagon?

Which was faster getting square bales of hay off the field and into the barn.

Just curious…

Thanks!

I don't think I've ever seen a stacker in Wisconsin, guy up the road had those triangular trailers that the baler pushed the bale up into.

 

[rockyridgefarm]

I don't think I've ever seen a stacker in Wisconsin, guy up the road had those triangular trailers that the baler pushed the bale up into.

Neighbor had a stack liner. He really didn’t like it. He said it was high maintenance and it very very particular on bale length. He also said it didn’t like hillsides. He got rid of it and put a thrower on his Massey 128 baler.

 

[Tony in SD]

I have my own custom stacker. Her name is Judy! My wife can build a mean load of hay and she says she likes the exercise so we bale right on to the wagon. She stacked most of what is in this picture in one afternoon. Rarely will she run the baler says she rather stack. We had a belt thrower on one baler but I took it off last year as she didnt like having to eat the chaff. It did make for less walking and lifting when on the wagon, but heh I didnt argue!

Sounds like you have a keeper. We were like that at one time but the years have slowed us down a little. We just bale & stack straw for our own use now days.

 

[Bill in Colo]

I loved the NH Super 1049, I bought in 1980 it is is the only machine I really know I made money with. I stacked 250 to 300 tons for my self , 430 to 500 tons for my brother in law. He baled my hay I didn't have to own a baler. I also stacked another 15-20,000 baled per year. I paid $18000 ran 4 years maybe $750 repairs sold it for $14,000 to BIL . I went to round bales in 85. BIL still has the stacker but only uses it for 4,000 bale a year. The stacker would likely sell for 8-10,000 today

 

[495man]

Thrower and wagons was what all the guys used back in the day. If you had a barn you could unload a stack into, you were using a round baler instead.

I did stack in thrower wagon behind a thrower. You had to trust the driver not to aim at you and you ate dust the whole time.

 

[J.Wondergem]

I never did either one. I went from baling to the wagon to round baling.

 

[wore out]

Saw a few videos of a New Holland “Stackliner” bale wagon at work. Wonder who thunk of that contraption…

Back in the day, which was the best tow behind bale collector, a NH Stackliner bale wagon or kicker off the baler into a wagon?

Which was faster getting square bales of hay off the field and into the barn.

Just curious…

Thanks!

Two different situations here, if you have lots of muscular, help the kicker and a bunch of wagons will for sure get the job done very quickly.

If you have to go at it alone, or with little help the NH wagon will win, hands down.

(I used a neighbor's "1033" "back in the day", and owned a little "1010" for a while and put up a considerable amount of bales by myself, as Dad was getting up in years and no other help was available.)

 

[GreenEnvy]

Neighbor had a stack liner. He really didn’t like it. He said it was high maintenance and it very very particular on bale length. He also said it didn’t like hillsides. He got rid of it and put a thrower on his Massey 128 baler.

When we got our first stacker, we had several neighbors hire us. We had more trouble picking up bales made by NH balers than JD balers.

 

[stoughtonfarmboy]

I don't think I've ever seen a stacker in Wisconsin, guy up the road had those triangular trailers that the baler pushed the bale up into.

I have a neighbor who bales hay with a John Deere baler that lays the bales on their sides on the ground. Then he uses a small stacker wagon to pick them up. Has a person help unload and stack inside. South Central Wisconsin.

Ken

 

[Robert (ID)]

to each there own.. we have a NH stack wagon.. I dont see how a baler with thrower and wagon would keep up when we are working a field (120 acres) that is 12 miles away... thats 24 miles round trip..

 

[EFV]

to each there own.. we have a NH stack wagon.. I dont see how a baler with thrower and wagon would keep up when we are working a field (120 acres) that is 12 miles away... thats 24 miles round trip..

At that distance a Cruiseliner would really be the cat's meow. Neighbor had one.

 

[db4600]

I would suggest it depended upon where you lived, and the climate conditions. In the northern east we get too much rain to store small square bales outside, and it would be cost prohibitive to build new storage buildings that could accommodate unloading of the bale stacker wagons on most farms. Bale kickers or as we always called them “bale throwers “ dominated the scene, being able to bale and have the bales tumbled into a basket wagon by one person, making one pass of the field was a great time and labour saving. Even though it required a crew working back at the barn unloading and stacking bales, it was a labour saving. I had 4 wagons and a baler with a thrower. And I could go to the field and bale on 400 or more bales and haul them back to the barn by myself within a couple hours.

Agreed. Toward the end of our dairy days and when manpower dwindled to to the last man on the bench Pa bought a 1032 and we put up hay for the last 6 years of cow milking. The 1032 had the single bale unload table and was efficient. I also helped the bachelor neighbor put up hay with a kicker. He had a hired man and 3 of us could put up more hay in a day than Pa and I could with the NH Stackliner. NH had good dealer support in central Mn and Stackliners weren’t unheard of, but kickers were the norm. I recall seeing more Stackliners north of us and definitely in the Dakotas and western states.

 

[ss55]

Saw a few videos of a New Holland “Stackliner” bale wagon at work. Wonder who thunk of that contraption…

Back in the day, which was the best tow behind bale collector, a NH Stackliner bale wagon or kicker off the baler into a wagon?

Which was faster getting square bales of hay off the field and into the barn.

Just curious…

Thanks!

I was under the impression that one new Stackliner wagon cost about the same money as a new small square baler or a new big round baler.

In the hills of West Central Iowa there were very few Stackliners around, I don't remember seeing any. There were some bale throwers but most area farms went from hand stacking on hay racks straight to big round bales in the mid 1970's.

A classmate worked as a hired hand on a rather odd farm that always had the hired man stack bales inside their bale kicker wagons. They shortened the bales to 1/2 length cubes so they did not hurt so much when he got hit by a bale. He moved on to a better job after HS graduation.